Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1887-03-02


presidential contest OF that year it was
clearly shown that capital was too much
protected, and that wealth and power were
stealing too rapidly from the many to the
few. 1t was shown that the capitalist abb
sorbed all the profits of the protection, "
and that ''the OK that treaded out the
corn" did not receive his share Of sROsist-
euce from the masters hand. The skilled
laborer thence on was an important factor
in this field of conflict He stood NJ his
machine, OF furnace, or improved method,
and said who should or who should not
learn. He measured, for the time, the
limits of competition with himself He
demanded that the employer should divide
his profits, arising from these special laws,
with himself The ledgers must be opened,
the profits and losses must be compared,
md arbitration must decide what each
must have from the common gain taken from
all the rest of mankind But new methods
displaced many new inventions of machln-
ery substituted the places OF thousands, new
products of the earth sent many more into
other fields of competition and necessity;
the great mother of enterprise made the
selfeducatiOn ofnew men TO take the places
of those who in grasping for more lost what
they had.
There is an aristocracy of labor. do
not use the term in any insidiOus sense.
| have too much sympathy with daily
struggles of mankind, and too much re-
gard for the talent which it implies to
think of it lightly. 1t is, in truth, when
we'll enlightened and fairly and graciously
directed the noblest elevator of humanity.
From a moral and political aspect these
men have no more right to entrench them
selves in special oligarchy of protection,
especially as against their fellow cO-labOr-
ers, than the capitalists have to fortliy
their position as as against the entire COM
munity of our citizens.
Touch society anywhere and everywhere
and these inequalities of conditions ana
capacities come forth. Whatever may he
said of the equality Of men before the law,
we find nothing to correspond with 1t IN
nature. Yet it is the very and most sacred
thing the law should say, when Justice,
the blind goddess, comes TO dispense the
rights of persons on those principles OF
truth which have been taught by the eN-
perience of the centuries. While the new
preachers of the ,jGqucrie strike down the
"skilled labor all over the country, IN
every department OF life, without dlscrim-
inatiOn, and without Justice. While they
strike down railroads that the employees
shall still hold their places ut higher sal
aries, or that there shall be no diScrlmlna-
ton OF wages, freight fares and that the
incomes shall be balanced to the
roads, and any of engineers kept over
the country for exploration, estimation OF
expense, and construction contracts, or 10
dispense the new favOrs, who shall the Ia
borers be and what shall be their wages!
Shall the churches be closed and the
preachers be dismissed, or shall they be
kent open, and the salaries all graded to
one standard of legal value? Shall Chi
nese wall I've built all around the country,
and nobody 90 out and nobody come III,
and the manufacturing establishments all
run so that there shall be no surplus, and
everybody get what everybody wants,
and every man shall get the same cOmmu-
nistic price for his labor, and there shall
he no salaried superintendent, nor any
surplus for the keeping of the new mem
bers of the new society? Shall the
subdivision of the farms which now
so rapidly going on under the oper-
of natural laws, be declared at once to its
lowest limit, and what Committee OF
Public Safety" shall say who shall ne far
mers, who artiZans, who teachers OF the
schools, who warriors, who merchants,
and, in fine Introduce and settle down for
all generations to come the iron bound
caste system of India? The religion Of the
McGlynns, the empty culture of the
Georges, the universal sympathy Of the
Herr MostS, and the pitiable monOmania
that would reach the Presidency Of the
United States by tampering with these
powers of evil are not equal TO the task of
intellusing order into the chaos.
The IamiltOnian idea was Il monarch on
the throne lie was, in theory, the source
Of all power, and the dispenser of all
pOlitical favor lie was the centre
into which all taxation flowed. Nothing
came into existence or went out of 1t (ior
for the burial clothes Of the dead were
taxed, which did not pay tribute to him
and in support OF them who supported
him. Behind the throne stood the mighty
spectre of the national debt, whose wierd
and iltelul energies moved the deStlnlcS OF
the nation. 1t said SIC rOiO SIC .jWbcS-as
| wish ! command, and all heads must
bow, and all hearts must break aS it chose
to pile taxation upon taxation Tor this in
tereSt or that, this policy or that, this pre-
mier and party who changes names hut
substitutes new conditions for taxation,
power, and favor, or that premier and
party who believes in the SanCtity of their
Inherited ideas, and that England has
been Il great civiliZing power OF the earth,
and that her mission has not been fully
filled. Causes and events march on, and
America, in the true theory Of her
politicaf existence. is no more like the
monarchy of England and the empires OF
Europe, than England and Europe are like
the older Asia. 1t behOOveS the AmeIl-
cans not to create, in their imaginations,
the idea of Nationality that shall CORE
spond to that of England. We want No
power that shall crush out the sense OF
! home rule in the States. Wewant no per
petual National debt, that by its manipu-
lations can buy up and subsidize the
States, make them dependent for pecunlary
aid, corrupting favors. We want no form
of property or bonded rights that shall eX-
empt tho wealth of the country from taxa
ton; We want no English tayOritismi we
want no class legislation either for capital
or labor; and, above all, with these limita'
tons, we want law and order
| Partaking in the interests of the farmer,
and subjected to his OncrOuS and ungraclous
taxations, both direct and indirect, and
participating in his sympathies and feeling
that in practice our government Is growing
more and more alike To that OF England
| cannot express more torcihly what
believe to he his CGndnion than by refer
ence 10 the celebrated picture of the great
moral painter, IIugIrlh, in illustrating the
English system. The King is on the
throne; on one side the prclates in robes
ON the other the army officials in full dress
and alternately the lawyers, the doctors,
the sailors and the merchants: the King
says, | rule all; the army says, | fight fol
all; the prelates, | pray for all; the law
ycrS, guard the rights of all; the doctors
| cure all; the sailors, carry all; the mer
chants, sell to all; and at the end of tn,
two lines and between them, stands the
| farmer in worn and SHREDDED clothes, with
L